A fine mess

At the start of the crisis there were two main objectives: to restore substantive autonomy to Kosovo and ensure that the Yugoslav government respected the Kosovars’ political, cultural, religious and linguistic freedoms. The plan at the Rambouillet conference was to achieve these two aims by peaceful means. The Serbs and the Kosovars (including representatives of the Kosovan Liberation Army) had reached a consensus on the two main objectives. The Rambouillet conference ended in failure because of the West’s stubborn insistence (the United States in particular) on a Nato presence in Kosovo to monitor the implementation of the agreements.

Five weeks on from the start of the bombing in Yugoslavia, it is impossible not to be appalled at the extraordinary recklessness with which the Nato countries became involved in this latest Balkan conflict. They entered the war totally unprepared.

At the start of the crisis there were two main objectives: to restore substantive autonomy to Kosovo and ensure that the Yugoslav government respected the Kosovars’ political, cultural, religious and linguistic freedoms. The plan at the Rambouillet conference was to achieve these two aims by peaceful means. The Serbs and the Kosovars (including representatives of the Kosovan Liberation Army) had reached a consensus on the two main objectives and Slobodan Milosevic’s government had specifically agreed to grant Kosovo a large measure of autonomy. After free elections the province would have self-government, its own parliament, president, judicial system and police (1).

So why, when the two sides had agreed on the essentials, did the Rambouillet conference end in failure? There was one reason and one reason alone: the Western powers’ stubborn insistence (the United States in particular) on a Nato presence in Kosovo to monitor the implementation of the agreements. They were well aware that the Belgrade government would object (see article by Paul-Marie de La Gorce) and its all too predictable refusal was seen as a casus belli. There was no suggestion that other intervention forces might be used or, for instance, the United Nations’ “blue berets”. The choice was between Nato or war. So war it was.

There is no denying that the Serbian government’s treatment of the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo was deplorable. In 1981 in particular the Kosovo Albanians (the only non-Slav and non-Christian group in former Yugoslavia) had protested violently against their status, which they regarded as discriminatory. The removal of that status in 1989 was a provocation. The Kosovar parliament was dissolved, the teaching of the Albanian language banned and over 150,000 Albanian-speakers were sacked from their jobs in the civil service and state-owned companies. Martial law was introduced, giving the Belgrade forces of repression a free hand. In the last ten years they have stepped up their persecution of the Albanians to persuade them to leave the country. Inevitably the Albanians rebelled.

Whereas Ibrahim Rugova’s supporters opted for passive resistance, the KLA militants became increasingly violent in their opposition. In the past two years they have carried out murderous attacks on the forces of law and order and the Serb minority. Such incidents, seized on by the mass media, have given government propagandists an excuse to play on Serbian nationalist sentiments and stir up racist feeling against the Albanians.

Like all Balkan geopolitical issues, the situation was clearly complex and had been going on for years. The search for a compromise was bound to be long and hard. That being so, the Rambouillet conference should have continued for several more weeks, especially since the few thousand OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) observers in Kosovo were to some extent keeping the violence against the Kosovars under control.

The lesson of history is that any ill-timed political changes in this explosive region set off a chain of consequences - as Milosevic’s unilateral removal of Kosovo’s and Vojvodina’s autonomous status in 1989 and the over-hasty recognition of Slovenian and Croatian independence by Germany and the Vatican in 1991 so tragically show. The Nato air offensive has once more made that lesson clear.

In theory, the aim of the bombing was to destroy Milosevic’s machinery of repression, but Belgrade’s reprisals against the Kosovo Albanians were entirely predictable. The Nato leaders have been staggeringly shortsighted. Their action has placed the Kosovars in a dangerous situation similar to that of the Turkish Armenians in 1915. When the Russians attacked, the Armenians were regarded by the Turkish government as a potential fifth column, which led to the notorious genocide.

Nato constantly refers to the Yugoslav leader as a “bloodthirsty dictator”. Was it unaware of the plans for large-scale ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and the burning desire of Milosevic’s ultra-nationalist allies to put these plans into practice? Even though, to be fair to Nato, it was hard to conceive of brutality on such a criminal scale as the Belgrade authorities have visited on the Kosovo Albanians.

The bombing has also had other unforeseen casualties. It has further marginalised the UN by being decided without specific authority from the Security Council. In most countries it was ordered by governments without a parliamentary vote, undermining the role of parliament. On the ground, the bombing is also affecting the Serb (and sometimes Kosovar) civilian population. A number of people have been killed through military errors and the bombing of factories and infrastructures has destroyed tens of thousands of jobs. Daily life is fast becoming a nightmare.

It was apparently expected that the bombing would turn the population against Milosevic. But the reverse has happened: the feeling of victimisation has united the nation. In the heightened atmosphere of seeing their country under threat, democratic Serbs who oppose the regime are taking a patriotic stance and toning down their criticism of Milosevic.

In the diplomatic field Russia, a leading player in Balkan geopolitics for the last 200 years, has been humiliated and sidelined. This could ultimately create a centre of instability that is an infinitely greater threat to world peace than the Balkans.

All things considered, Nato’s first war can be regarded as a disaster. And the whole situation is likely to spread, especially if the sea blockade of Yugoslavia (also ordered by Nato without a UN decision) leads to confrontation with other powers, Russia in particular. Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania are becoming ever more unstable and this instability could ultimately spread to Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, and even to Greece, Moldavia and Turkey. All these more or less “front line” countries, with a population of about 150 million between them, are following events with a mixture of apprehension and excitement.

In the light of this fiasco, it has to be asked why there was such a hurry to start the war. The claim is it was for “moral” or “humanitarian” reasons. These are reasonable and legitimate arguments, but not totally convincing. For instance, there are just as many “moral” and “humanitarian” reasons to intervene now in Kurdistan. The Turkish government has been waging a relentless war against the Kurds since 1984, refusing to grant them autonomy or even allow them to teach the Kurdish language. The war has claimed nearly 29,000 lives and over a million Kurds have become refugees.

There are also “moral” and “humanitarian” arguments for repairing the injustice done to the Greek Cypriots. Over 160,000 were killed in the brutal “ethnic cleansing” in 1974 and others were driven out of Northern Cyprus with shocking brutality by the invading Turkish army. The Turks are still illegally occupying the northern part of the island and have encouraged over 60,000 immigrants from Turkey to settle there.

And what about the “moral” and “humanitarian” reasons for intervening to help the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians oppressed and expelled by the Israeli authorities? Palestinians are still being driven out of East Jerusalem, while Jewish settlement of the West Bank is encouraged in contravention of international agreements and UN resolutions.

Is the plight of the Kurds, Greek Cypriots and Palestinians any less shocking, their cause any less just, than those of the Kosovo Albanians? Why is the West (rightly) urging negotiation in their case but bombing Yugoslavia? The reasons are political, not moral. Turkey and Israel are democratic states with free-market economies, old military allies of the West and geographically remote from the centre of the European Union, whereas Serbia, on top of its criminal nationalistic extremism, is refusing to adopt the free market model that globalisation demands. In that sense it is an ideal target for Nato and a very bad example to some of its neighbours in Eastern Europe which are also suffering the effects of the economic and political crisis. That is the real reason for Nato’s intransigence just as a new world order is developing in front of our eyes.

Since 1991 Nato has been suffering a severe identity crisis. Now it has found a new strategic role - extending and reinforcing the community of democratic states - which, even before being officially approved in Washington this April, has given it legitimacy. But there is one indispensable condition for being part of this expanding of democracy: adopting the Western model and accepting the dominance of the US.